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Slammiversary (2022) -- Results & Afterthoughts

Slammiversary (2022) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Impact Wrestling. It took place on June 19, 2022 at The Asylum in Nashville, Tennessee. It celebrated the promotion's 20th anniversary, with the show being held exactly 20 years to the date of Impact's very first event, and was the 18th event under the Slammiversary chronology.

Nine matches were contested at the event, with two matches contested on the pre-show. In the main event, Josh Alexander defeated Eric Young to retain the Impact World Championship. In other prominent matches, Mike Bailey won an Ultimate X match to win the Impact X Division Championship, Jordynne Grace won the inaugural Queen of the Mountain match to win the Impact Knockouts World Championship, The Good Brothers defeated The Briscoes to win the Impact World Tag Team Championship, and Impact Originals defeated Honor No More in a 10-man tag team match. This event featured videos and appearances honoring the anniversary by Sting, Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, James Storm, Chris Harris and Dixie Carter.

Match Card & Results:

Singles match for the Impact Digital Media Championship

Rich Swann (c) defeated Brian Myers by pinfall

Reverse Battle Royal

Shark Boy won by last eliminating Johnny Swinger

The two pre-show matches can be viewed below in their entirety for free from IMPACT Wrestling's on YouTube channel. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to watch these live myself, so I don't have any comments on the preshow in any capacity.

Ultimate X match for the Impact X Division Championship

"Speedball" Mike Bailey defeated Ace Austin (c), Alex Zayne, Andrew Everett, Kenny King, and Trey Miguel

It amazes me how after all of these years, IMPACT is the only mainstream wrestling company (at least stateside) that knows how to present and properly book high-flyers and cruiserweights/light-weights to highlight the best of their abilities. IMPACT has a knack for starting these PPVs off right with one of these matches to amp up the crowd and this match definitely did that. No matter how many of these Ultimate X Matches that they do, the guys involved always seem to pull out something new and innovative. I'm not even going to try to recollect all of the action here, but it was definitely one banger to start this PPV off with.

Andrew Everett was a last minute replacement/substitution for Jack Evans who suffered a pretty nasty injury a few days prior that I'm sure many saw going around on Twitter.

I'm sure Veda Scott was happy to see her husband win championship gold in the end too. As much as I have enjoyed seeing the rise of Trey Miguel in the role of a singles champion over the past year, I thought it was rightly deserved for Speedball as he's been on a tear since arriving in IMPACT.

Tag Team Match for the Impact Knockouts World Tag Team Championship

Rosemary and Taya Valkyrie defeated The Influence (Madison Rayne and Tenille Dashwood) (c) by pinfall

A solid performance from both teams, with Rosemary and Taya's chemistry looking like they never missed a beat from her time away over in WWE/NXT. Watching this live, it felt like this ended a little prematurely, but I found out after the fact what happened. Madison Rayne suffered a broken nose at some point into this match and I'm guessing why they rushed to end it before it got too bad. That being said, I thought it was the right call, even though it's pretty nuts to realize how many titles that Taya Valkyrie has picked up since coming back to the indies. I've honestly lost track since she beat Deonna for the AAA Reina de Reinas Championship and recently won MLW's Featherweight Championship.

If this means that Taya and Rosemary's friendship is going to continue where they left it off, then I'm all for it.

Monster's Ball Match

Sami Callihan defeated Moose by pinfall

I've always thought the whole setup for this match where both men are put into isolation without food, water, and in pitch black darkness for 24 hours prior was pretty silly. I mean c'mon. Wouldn't all of the participants succumb to some sort of exhaustion pretty early into this match if they really were forced to endure those conditions? I did get a kick out of Sami coming out of his room saying that he wanted to live in there though, so it's good to see someone has a sense of humor about this.

As for the match itself, I thought it a lot better than I was expecting going in, especially for the fact that I have grown pretty indifferent to these modern hardcore matches as a whole. Of course, they got their tradition (read: cliched) thumbtack and barbwire table spots in that I'm still amazed that people agree to take bumps on even in 2022. I was just amazed at how much abuse that these two guys were continuing to kick out of.

The craziest spot in the entire match was a Scoop Slam onto a turned over trash can. If Moose doesn't have back and spinal issues after that, I don't know what that dude is made of. That bump was incredible and insanely stupid at the same time.

Tag Team Match for the Impact World Tag Team Championship

The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) defeated The Briscoes (Jay Briscoe and Mark Briscoe) (c) by pinfall

One of my friends said it going into this match that they had a bad feeling about the Good Brothers going over and I adamantly warned them not speak that evil into existence. And well, here we are. I'm not going to knock the match as it was actually pretty darn good though. They found ways to keep me invested in this match when I'm not even remotely fond of the Good Brothers or their matches for a long time now.

I can't be too surprised in the least with the Good Brothers going over as they are one of the main reasons that IMPACT has such as strong bridge/connection with New Japan right now.

The post-match was the most intriguing thing as AMW ("America's Most Wanted" AKA "Cowboy" James Storm & "Wildcat" Chris Harris' first pairing in IMPACT at the start) came out to join the Briscoes and the Good Brothers in the ring. I thought that they were going to challenge them to a three-way down the road, but nope, they just came to applaud/celebrate tag team wrestling in IMPACT for the past 20 years and share a few beers with them in the ring.

Seeing AMW made me sad that WWE couldn't allow Bobby Roode to show up for a minor Beer Money reunion. I guess I can't complain too much when they at least allowed AJ Styles to send in a tribute video for them to air during this broadcast.

10-man Tag Team Match

Impact Originals (Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, Davey Richards, Frankie Kazarian, and Nick Aldis) defeated Honor No More (Eddie Edwards, Matt Taven, Mike Bennett, PCO, and Vincent) (with Maria Kanellis) by pinfall

Dixie Carter made a surprise appearance at this point in the show, mainly to thank the fans for supporting IMPACT for 20 years and to introduce the mystery 5th man for Team Impact Originals - Davey Richards. I have to say I was extremely underwhelmed but I should've known that Tony Khan wasn't going to allow IMPACT to use Samoa Joe or Christian when they already have Kazarian on loan right now. Christopher Daniels is pretty much retired for the most part (or at least got the foot out of the door on it). I had a glimmer of hope that WWE would return the favor of allowing IMPACT to borrow AJ Styles, Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, or Robert Roode for one night since they loaned them Mickie James for the Royal Rumble this year, but nope. From a storyline perspective, Davey makes the most sense since he was Eddie's former tag team partner and knows him better than anyone else as a counter to Honor No More.

Queen of the Mountain Match for the Impact Knockouts World Championship

Jordynne Grace defeated Tasha Steelz (c) (with Savannah Evans), Chelsea Green, Deonna Purrazzo, and Mia Yim

Mickie James was the special guest enforcer.

I'll be honest here. The King of the Mountain Match was a rather silly concept when Jeff Jarrett popularized it in the early years of NWA-TNA, but not as offensive (read: moronic) as the Reverse Battle Royal (another Vince Russo creation FYI). I will admit that it's a little hard to follow for anyone who hasn't seen this match type before. That being said, I thought the ladies knocked this out of the park to say that this was their first time doing this.

My only critique of it was that it felt like they were singling out Tasha Steelz from doing little to anything for majority of the match (and rightfully so, given that she's the reigning champion going into this) as it felt like she was the one spending the most time in the penalty box. Mia Yim really got to shine here, taking cues from her best frienemy, Shelton Benjamin, in terms of finding innovative ways to use the ladder in a match like this. I couldn't help but laugh at the bump that took both Chelsea Green and Deonna Purrazzo out of the match after Mia shoved them off the top of the ladders which send them both crashing through a pile of tables setup at ringside. The cameras caught the shot of them laying in the debris holding hands like it was the end of Titanic and I lost it laughing hysterically.

I thought the finish was pretty smart with everything coming down between Jordynne Grace and Tasha Steelz. Grace pins Steelz to force her to be in the penalty box while Mia Yim still had another minute before she would be released. With Chelsea and Deonna still disposed of at ringside, there was no one to stop Grace from hanging up the title and winning the match.

As much as I have LOVED Tasha Steelz's first run as Knockouts Champion and sad to see her lose it, I can't be mad at Jordynne's win here. Jordynne has had a long string of bad luck it seems in terms of her partners or dancing partners that she's feuding with either getting injured or leaving the company. This just felt like the right call to make to "reward" her for rolling with the punches and going with whatever IMPACT put her in there to do while knocking it out of the park at every occasion.

Singles Match for the Impact World Championship

Josh Alexander (c) defeated Eric Young (with Deaner and Joe Doering) by pinfall

I honestly haven't been following enough over the past few months to see how/why this match came to fruition, but I can't complain when Eric Young has proven to excel in these main event situations for IMPACT. He was a suitable challenger and obstacle for Rich Swann to overcome a few years ago and he was the right opponent to challenge Josh Alexander on IMPACT's 20th anniversary, especially since he's one of the few IMPACT Originals still on the active roster.

This was a match littered full of callbacks and tributes to stars of IMPACT's past over the years, with Josh and EY busting out finishers and signature moves from those talents in particular. Josh was using moves from babyfaces while EY used moves from heels. That made perfect sense too. Eric Young even got off one of Jarrett's signature guitar shots that left a rather large notable gash on Josh's forehead. Ultimately, Josh was able to fight off the incoming onslaught of Violent By Design and still retain the IMPACT World Championship in a main event that had no business being this good. I really hope IMPACT realizes what they have in Josh Alexander. With his Kurt Angle (Main Event Mafia) inspired gear, they truly have one of their biggest break-out stars that will continue to carry this company hopefully to another 20 years.

At the end of this show, I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't try to end with a cliffhanger or setup for the next event. They just sent the people home happy and that was more than enough for a good note to end on for this twenty year anniversary show.

Closing Thoughts

I have to admit that I don't keep up with IMPACT as much as I should these days, but trust and believe that whenever I do, I'm never disappointed. This show was a perfect example of that with great matches up and down this card. This show just proves to be another reason why I passionately wish that more people would give the current regime of IMPACT Wrestling a chance. They have a lot of great talent featured prominently here that are under a lot of people's radar.

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